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Monday, April 6, 2015

Second Week in the Field

I would complain about the heat, but it's not even worth it. I'll save it for later. But for now I can just tell you that I sweat so much here. If there is not moving air I start to feel the sweat fall down my chest and pool at my belt. Luckily most people have a fan in places that don't have moving air. But when they don't, it gets real messy. Not enough to significantly distract me, but it gets messy.

The big brown thing in the middle of the roundabout (behind Wyatt) is the national monument. That part of my area has all the embassies and is close to the mission home.

I guess a little about the people like I promised. Starting out the week we had one investigator named Ming Sitaa. She has been an investigator forever and will be an investigator forever, because one of her friends waited 8 years to get baptized, so she wants to wait 8 years, too. But anyways, we decided to start what we call "OFF"--Operation Find Family. So we started walking around the streets pretty close to our house and asking people if they wanted to learn about Jesus. Which most of the time when people hear the word "Jesus" they make a face and pretend like they don't understand us which is weird, because aren't we speaking Khmer?

These kids live on our street so we see them every morning when we leave and every night when we get home.

This kid always wants to see my watch because it lights u,p so I'm gonna give him his own watch.

Side story: We were just walking home from our last lesson one day and we were walking towards this woman on the side of the road. We didn't even intend to talk to her; we were just walking by to get home, and she starts saying "ot cheh sdap" to us while walking away from us to avoid us, which means "I don't know how to listen" or basically "I cant understand you," Then we started speaking to her in Khmer (like asking her why she didn't understand her own language), but she just kept saying it over and over again, lol.

On our way to Stung Meanchey for a zone meeting. So you can see how i'ts actually super dusty (although it rained the night before, so there wasn't as much dust as usual)

(Oh, and this one is for you mom; it's one of the dump trucks from trash mountain.)

Editor's note: read The Rent Collector by Camron Wright

But anyways, within the space of an hour we met two people that wanted to learn which was super cool. So we set up an appointment and came back to teach. The first time we taught them (Thursday or Friday), they didn't seem very interested--even though we were teaching them about the restoration. (Side story #2: This is actually really funny, because it just happened to Sam Najera on his mission, but right when I was starting to say the first vision the rain started pouring super hard to where I couldn't even hear myself because everyone has tin roofs, so that was a little bit of a bummer, and maybe contributed to them not having too much interest). But the second lesson we brought a lady from our ward that was like the same age as them, and that lesson went WAY better. They could actually understand us a lot better because our neakming (ladies that are like the same age as your parents) could explain everything in more advanced Khmer. Anyways it was really great and we were super excited for them, because we have taught them two lessons and they now seem to be receiving it really well.

Love, Elder Hall

This is seriously the coolest picture I have ever taken, and no one will under stand it like me. I was riding super fast to catch up with my companion, because if I lose him, I'm screwed. This city is cray. and I saw it coming up on the wall, so I took off my back pack, threw it in my basket and got my camera out AND WHILE I WAS GOING FULL SPEED took a selfie at the exact right time to have it over my shoulder. It was such a cool success story. lol

Mekong river from the riverside view on the eastern side of Phnom Penh.

On the way to Stung Meanchay for Zone Coference

This Coke can was on an island called Koh Pich, and that thing was like just sitting on the side of the road. Don't really know why.

Still on the way to Zone Conference

The comp and I modeling Cambodian hats

This picture was a complete accident, but it looks like super artsy so I kept it.

Selfy of me and the comp while he was getting his bike fixed outside of one of the wats (temple).

The black mass of fur is, in fact, a little puppy. It was so cute and one of our recent converts just got it.

2 comments:

This is Keithsran. Haha! I remember that ride to Steung Mean Chey. Serving there was something else too. The road isn't done yet? NOT SURPRISED. Hey, just a warning about giving that kid a watch (or giving anyone anything) everyone else is gonna want one. I LOVE the Independence monument round about! It is so fun. I used to pretend I was a fighter pilot or an x-wing pilot diving in on an attack run heading to the circle and then streak away at full speed dodging traffic. I had a pretty close call my last pday there. You're making me miss it so much!